Wizard of the Crow (24 page)

At the beginning of his mission he had proudly announced the message to the people standing in line:
Chairman Titus Tajirika is not in the office today. Please go home and come back tomorrow.
But he soon found it cumbersome, speaking as he was on his motorcycle, a bullhorn in one hand. He would start proclaiming it to some, only to pass them by without completing his remarks. As a result, people were getting bits of information. So the rider figured that it would make more sense to shorten the sentence. First he cut out all unnecessary words like
Chairman Titus Tajirika.
Next, all the explanations about the boss not being in the office. Then he stopped telling people that they’d better go home and abbreviated it to
Come back tomorrow,
which he subsequently shortened to one word:
Tomorrow.
But even so, some people heard only syllables, some catching
to,
others
mor,
and yet others
row.

He became the subject of heated discussions among the queuers, who concluded that he must be possessed of the daemons that usually force politicians to spew out words for the sake of hearing themselves talk, whether or not they made any sense. They nicknamed him Motorized Madman, soon the name of choice for all traffic police officers.

After roaming for seven days through towns near and around Eldares in pursuit of the end of the queue, he eventually found himself back in Santamaria. The tail of the queue had somehow joined the head to make a huge circle, and that, in the view of analysts, was the real problem that faced the rider. He had been moving in circles, and only when he spotted the Mars Cafe did he realize that he had traveled back to the beginning. How many times he had circled the city without his knowing will forever remain a mystery, even to him. All the rider could now say was that had it not been for the Mars Cafe, he might have spent the rest of his life searching for the end of the queue.

Actually, this rider could talk only about the one queue that he had attended to; countless others appeared in every corner of
Eldares. For a time it was as if everybody in Eldares was possessed. If a person happened to be window shopping, he would suddenly find that a queue had formed behind him. People did not even bother to ask what the queue was about; they simply assumed that there was good reason for it and wanted their share of whatever was being dispersed. Rumors that Marching to Heaven was already underway and that the financial missionaries from the Global Bank were doling out cash served only to intensify the fever. Sometimes a person would start a queue without being aware that he had done so, go home, and on the following day join the same queue, still ignorant that he had been its innocent first cause. Lines simply assumed lives of their own.

At the conclusion of his oral report, the police officer fell asleep from utter exhaustion at police headquarters. For seven days and nights, he tossed and turned in his own filth, as one gripped by a nightmare. When, after seven days of sleep, he awoke screaming for his Yamaha to continue with the unfinished task of following all the queues to their origins, he was committed to a psychiatric ward for observation and later given indefinite leave without pay to recuperate.

When his report reached the ears of the Ruler, he immediately summoned his ministers to an emergency cabinet meeting to figure out ways of preventing the daemonic queues from spreading to the other cities.

It became obvious, at the emergency session at the State House, that what most concerned the Ruler was the crazed rider’s observation that the queues seemed to have no beginning and no end. That sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? he asked the cabinet, without a trace of humor.

Sikiokuu, the first to respond, said that since it was illegal, in all Aburlria, for more than five people to gather without a police permit, the unlicensed queuing was a clear violation of the law and suggested
to the whole world not only that unemployment had reached a crisis but that there were shortages of goods in shops. This was terrible for the image of the country. But why was all this happening now, during the Global Bank mission? To frighten investors? Were there some in their midst who were subtly inciting citizens to queue as the first step of a revolt of the masses? Perhaps those who had arranged the Bank’s visit had something else up their political sleeves. Ban the queues. Yes, let them go the way of the Movement for the Voice of the People, Sikiokuu added, tugging at his earlobes for emphasis.

Machokali, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who spoke next, started by pointing at his eyes to show that he was watchful at all times and, most important, that he was not about to let Sikiokuu get away with damaging innuendos.

“What does Minister Sikiokuu mean by saying that queues should go the way of the Movement for the Voice of the People?” he asked. “Does he not know that the movement to which he refers dwells underground like a mole, its members frightened of the Buling light? Is the minister intimating that these queues should be forced underground, where they will be harder to detect and ferret out? I am sure that the minister will soon clarify his intentions.”

As long as the Global Bank mission was in the country, Machokali advised, the Buler should stay the course, carefully weighing his words and actions, and not allow himself to be provoked into recklessness by people with their own agendas.

“Your Mighty Excellency, we should not do anything that can be used against us by those in the world who infer from the fact that we have only one Party and one Buler that fear rules Aburlria. If anything, the queues should help to undermine their unfounded allegations. The sight of people lining up for whatever the reason, wherever, whenever, and however, should create a very good impression of the State in the Global Bank missionaries.”

“Is the minister implying that our country takes orders from the Global Bank?” Sikiokuu interjected, stung by Machokali’s words.

With that one question, Sikiokuu had slipped. He did not realize this immediately, but the others had seen the Buler frown and had grown tense.

“Mr. Sikiokuu, are you saying that I take orders from the Global Bank?”

“No, no, Your Mighty Excellency, I was not talking about you,” Sikiokuu tried to explain. “I was talking about the Country.”

He had slipped again.

“There is a difference between me and the Country?” the Ruler growled. “Have we not visited this already?”

Machokali seized the moment to further isolate his rival. He was on his feet, chanting:
His Mighty Ruler is the Mighty Country and the Mighty Country is the Ruler.
Led by Big Ben Mambo, the other ministers also stood up and chanted,
The Ruler and the Country are one and the same,
and soon it became a call-and-response ceremony led by Machokali.

The moment that he saw Machokali jump up with unalloyed alacrity, Sikiokuu had realized that he had slipped again, very badly, and for a second or so he did not know whether or not to stand up and join the others. How could he sing a song initiated by his enemy, moreover a song meant to isolate and humiliate him? So instead of joining the chorus he fell to his knees and bowed his head so low that his ears touched the ground, as if to demonstrate that action spoke louder than words.

The jubilant Machokali intensified his orchestration, and the calling and responding would have gone on for quite a while had the Ruler not gestured to them to sit down and let him hear what the man on his knees had to say for himself.

“There is nobody in the whole world,” Sikiokuu pleaded tremulously, “who does not know that the Ruler is this Country and this Country is His Mighty Country. It is also well known that many other leaders are jealous of that irrevocable identity. All I was saying is that unlicensed queuing should be banned so as not to be exploited by your enemies within and without to question that identity. Otherwise, I am a firm believer that You are the Country and the Country is You, and I propose that this fact be stated in the constitution. I swear before Your Mighty Presence that I shall myself make a motion in Parliament to amend the constitution accordingly.”

The Ruler signaled Machokali to carry on, and it was not lost on anybody that the leader had not only ignored Sikiokuu’s words but had not even asked him to return to his seat. Sikiokuu remained on his knees for the entire meeting.

A triumphant Machokali could not help but beat his rival into the
ground. There was no point, he said, in changing the constitution to include something as obvious as the fact that the sun is the source of heat and light. “But I don’t want to get embroiled in this foolishness,” he said. “I want to go back to the report of the police rider. It is obvious that the queuing is connected with Marching to Heaven. Employers and workers knew the project meant economic growth and jobs galore; that was why even before the project had been launched employer and employee stood shoulder to shoulder in the streets of Eldares in support of Marching to Heaven! Has anything like this ever happened in the history of the world? The lion and the lamb lying together? Fear not those who queue in hope but those who fear those who queue in hope. Take a cue from me: use the queue, don’t abuse it. Instead of banning queuing, we should present it to the world as the very picture of a nation lining up behind its leader’s vision.”

The Ruler was pleased with the idea. Ever since the people abandoned him in the park for fear of snakes, he had tried to hatch a scheme that would prove how much they still loved him, how much they desired nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. Here now was an opportunity.

As soon as the other ministers realized that the Ruler was excited by Machokali’s motion, their tongues loosened, each claiming, one after another, that queuing was most intense in his respective region with his constituents singing nothing but songs in praise of Marching to Heaven. A few regions where the mania had yet to break out said they would send word to the grass roots to immediately get busy. Others suggested that the Bank missionaries should tour the city and other parts of the country to see for themselves the extent of popular support for Marching to Heaven.

Even the humbled Sikiokuu tried to swim with the current, claiming that the Ruler was the founding father of all queuing and others were merely following his example. In his capacity as the Minister of State in the Ruler’s office entrusted with security, he, Sikiokuu, would add hundreds of M5S to the queues to ensure that no one would abuse the queuing mania as a referendum on anarchy.

“A queuing referendum for Marching to Heaven,” Big Ben Mambo burst out, resenting Sikiokuu’s continuing attempts to deflate Machokali’s ideas. This triggered a round of political discussion,
especially after Big Ben Mambo suggested that the queuing referendum could produce a new theory of politics, a point strongly supported by the Minister of Education. The latter insisted that such a theory, bearing the Buler’s name, could be taught in all Aburirian schools and colleges, supplanting the outmoded theories of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, and Pope. Another minister said that the political theories of ancient Greece belonged to the dead and should be thrown out the window. “We cannot allow the sepulchral mud of the dead to besmirch the spectacular mind of the living,” he said, and they all laughed. Even the Buler graced the remark with a smile and a humble opinion.

“Some people think that it is only white people who can come up with new theories, and they are wrong!” he said, and all the ministers chorused back:
Yeees!

They had gotten the hint and unanimously selected Machokali to head a committee to write down the Buler’s Theory of Politics and Government.

Fearing that all the blessings would pass him by, Sikiokuu, speaking from his kneeling position, said that by queuing people were already putting theory to practice and only the Buler could claim credit from it. What they needed to do was find a way to thank the people for queuing with such boundless enthusiasm. He himself volunteered to announce the Buler’s gratitude over prime-time radio and TV and to tour the country thanking the people in the name of the Buler for supporting the vision of Marching to Heaven.

Machokali glared at him. He would not give the cunning fellow an opportunity to put a foot in the door of Marching to Heaven. The idea of ensuring that every queue was infiltrated by M5 was excellent, Machokali said, and it showed that Minister Sikiokuu, even on his knees, could be quick on his feet when it mattered. But it was best to leave media to the Minister of Information, Big Ben Mambo, for were the announcement to come from the Buler’s office it would create the impression, totally false, that the people had been coerced into queuing, and this would definitely take away from the positive impression of a spontaneous grassroots anticipation of Marching to Heaven. And even then, a simple statement would suffice.

Years later a few of those present would look back on this moment and wonder, Had Machokali foreseen it all, or in trying to crush his
kneeling rival had he stumbled onto something with a significance that could be seen only in hindsight? All they could recall was Machokali whispering almost to himself, “They were four, but we can send five.” Some even claimed that the words were preceded by a light from his eyes so intense that it momentarily lit the room.

“What are you talking about?” the Ruler asked, puzzled.

“The four horsemen in the Book of Revelations,” he said without any hesitation.

“And what has that got to do with us?”

There was absolute silence as Machokali revealed his plan: they should send a rider to each of the five regions—northern, southern, western, eastern, and central—to assess firsthand the heat of the queuing fever and its effect on the general populace. The first thing he would impress upon the five riders selected by him was that they should make haste and not spend a whole week going in circles. He would tell them to roam all Aburiria and take a census of existing queues while conveying the Ruler’s gratitude and pleasure at the queuing and urging even more spontaneous eruptions in support of Marching to Heaven.